


Joey: Divert Attention

by botgal



Category: Hiveswap, Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Fake Crying, Fake/Pretend Relationship, It's kind of awkward, Joey breaks some cultural Troll romance etiquette, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Public Shoosh-Papping, Public Transportation, Shoosh-Papping, i mean kind of given the context
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-21
Updated: 2017-09-21
Packaged: 2019-01-03 19:29:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12153303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/botgal/pseuds/botgal
Summary: On their way to visit Xefros's connection, Joey and Xefros have to make their way through a train station. A train station with some suspicious Highbloods.Joey has to get... creative with how she gets them to not look their way.





	Joey: Divert Attention

This was not good. This was not good at all.

They had gotten to the train station which would take them on the weird over the ocean train that would take them to where Xefros's friend was since dear sweet Mononoke couldn't run over water. Good. But they were also now in a train station crowded with Trolls and, as per the rules of the transportation, were now separated from the two animals which could potentially protect them from harm since they'd already been loaded onto the lusus car. Bad. This station also, though incredibly segregated as with every other possible thing on this planet, had an unnervingly high number of 'Highblood' Trolls around. Worse. Also, though she couldn't prove anything for fear of increasing their danger, Joey had the rather frightening suspicion that at least a couple of said Highbloods were eyeing her...

Oh good golly gosh god why did she ever let herself be convinced that this train was a good idea this was bad this was so so _so_ bad she wanted to puke she was so scared.

She was trying to keep her head down, she had even, at Xefros's urging, donned a dark grey hoodie and even worn gloves and smeared paint on her skin to try to hide her very not grey skin. But whether it was something special about her particular brand of nervousness that singled her out from the rest of the trembling lowbloods who were scared of being so close to so many Highbloods, she could almost feel the eyes boring into her.

She just happened to look up, raise her eyes for just a second, and she swore she met the eyes of some hulking, lanky troll with a purple squiggly symbol on their shirt and paint smeared on their face and immediately ducked back down. She nervously glanced over at Xefros, who looked back at her with equal fear.

“I don't like this, all of those Trolls are looking at us,” she whispered, grasping her hands together.

“I know. I don't know what they suspect, but I definitely think they're staring at us,” he murmured back. He was practically trembling, and while Joey didn't know exactly why, she had a feeling that, given how he _lived_ on this planet amongst all of these dangerous Highbloods, he knew a lot more about what there was to be scared of than she did. “What are we going to do, Joey?”

“I don't _know_!” she yell whispered back at him, making a frustrated face at him. “I'm a puzzle solver, Xefros! My specialty isn't exactly how to get a bunch of potentially murderous people from staring at us!” He quailed at the harshness in her tone, and while Joey was sympathetic to his fear, she was a bit too frustrated and scared herself to be able to give him much comfort.

Wait a minute. Comfort...

She dared a glance at the purple shirt Highblood, and to her nervousness, she saw that they had drawn closer. Making some of the other surrounding lowbloods just as nervous. Gosh this would be super embarrassing (and possibly deadly) if she got it wrong, but darn it she had to try  _something_ .

“Wait, I may actually have an idea. You told me about pale stuff from your weird romance junk earlier, right? Lots of Trolls think it's a private thing?”

“Yeah...?” His face said he had absolutely no idea where she was going with this.

“Okay. This is gonna sound weird. But I need you to cry.”

“Uh, I mean, I don't think I'm that far off from it, considering how scared I am, but why?”

Joey glanced over at the gradually encroaching Highblood with fear, and stared at him desperately.

“No time! Just, fake it if you have to. Just make it look like you're crying and play along with what I do!”

“Well, I... alright.” Xefros took in a few short breaths, hunching over a bit, and made a few weak sobbing noises. His shoulders shook and he rubbed his arm over his eyes. His crying noises were laughably weak and fake, but it would have to do. She didn't know how well this would work, if it would even be convincing, but here went nothing.

“ _Shh,_ _shhhh_. It's okay, it's okay, don't cry.” She didn't know exactly how one was meant to sound pale, so she just drew on the voice she used when comforting a hurt animal and hoped for the best. “I'll make it better, you'll be fine.” She reached her hands towards him, rubbing one against his cheek and the other on his shoulder.

Xefros gave her a completely shocked look over the top of his arm, but Joey gave him a stern look from under her hood in return and he (still in some shock) got the message. So he went straight back to fake crying, while Joey went back to comforting.

“There there. You're alright. No need to cry,” she cooed, trying to gently keep her hand against his cheek without making it too weird. (How was she supposed to not make it weird when she had no idea what she was doing as far as Trolls went? She was under a lot of pressure, alright?!)

After a couple minutes of this, she dared to take a look, and nearly let out a sigh of relief when she saw that the Highblood who had been approaching had turned right around and was stalking back to their friends, a disgusted expression on their face. As a matter of fact, a lot of the surrounding Trolls were making odd faces, ranging anywhere from embarrassment to flat disgust like the Highblood.

Not a moment too soon, the doors to the train finally opened, and Joey put an arm around Xefros's shoulders in what she hoped would be a way that kept up the act, and led him into the train. They handed off their tickets to the conductor Troll, who was blushing a rather impressive shade of green, and made their way into what seemed to be the most secluded corner of the Burgundy car.

As soon as they made it there, Joey took her arm away from Xefros and let out a sigh of relief.

“That was a close one,” she groaned as she leaned back against a wall, closing her eyes. “I thought for sure that that one guy was catching on for a bit. I'm just glad that worked. Right, Xefros?... Xefros?” Joey opened one eye curiously, and was shocked to see Xefros's whole face was dark red. With the way he was looking at her, Joey couldn't help it as her own face started to warm up. “Oh gosh. I- I'm so sorry! I know that you said that kind of stuff is like, romance or something for you guys? And I know that it's like personal, but I couldn't think of anything else that that guy kept on coming-”

“N-no, I mean,” Xefros stuttered back. “You got them to leave us alone, and I know that you're, you know, and you don't think of that stuff that way-”

“Yeah but you _do_ , and I know that I shouldn't have, but-”

“No, but you-”

“But you-”

They looked at each other, neither really certain of what to say, until Xefros dropped his eyes and shifted the ground with the tip of his shoe.

“I mean, well... you _did_ get us out of there, so... thanks for that...”

“...You're welcome...”

The two of them stared at each other, until Joey tried to lighten the mood with a small smile. It took a minute, but Xefros finally returned it, and the air of relief for both of them was enormous. Sort of a culture clash thing, possibly slipping some boundaries there, but they had gotten through that. It was fine. It didn't have to be awkward.

… Even if it sort of was.

 

**Author's Note:**

> 'Lowblood shoosh paps their moirail in a public train station' sounds kind of like the title of a pale porno or something.


End file.
